"A visit to the Mutter Museum is a privileged view into a world rarely seen by those outside the profession. In the early years of the museum, most of the visitors were medical students, Fellows, and visiting physicians. Today the museum's annual visitors are primarily from the general public, who come to learn about the historical and modern practice of medicine, and about the nature and prevention of disease."

The paragraph above is taken from the Mutter Museum website, and it only hints at what awaits the visitor. The museum is affiliated with, and is located inside the confines of the College or Physicians of Philadelphia. It is truly an incredible collection of medical displays, recording the ravages of various diseases and malformed humanity. There is a thorough study of diseases, particularly plagues and epidemics, as well as disturbing harbingers of potential diseases of the future. The following paragraphs are taken from a recent ScaryBlog, detailing a visit Sciffy and Scuttles made to the Museum in January of 2001.

"The first part of the museum has a detailed exploration about diseases throughout history. There are interesting sections about medical procedures of the Abyssinians and ancient Egyptians, quite a bit of detail about the Black Plague and the medical thinking and "cures" of the day. There are examples of present day plagues such as smallpox, TB and AIDS, the influenza epidemic, and a modern kitchen with all the hidden disease producing areas and things to be concerned about. Definitely not a place to visit if you tend to be hypochondriac.

The next section is split into two, with half showing a history of electrocardiogram equipment, an old Iron Lung, quite a bit of info on the old March of Dimes, and an old Doctor's Office from just a few decades ago... it looks more like a place of torture. The other half is about the health of our Presidents down through the ages. You will be amazed at just how sick and infirm so many of our past Presidents have been while in office, and how they hid it from the public. (For example, Washington had a huge carbuncle on his thigh that almost killed him, Andrew Jackson was in constant pain from two bullets still lodged in his body from two separate duels, Kennedy had an incurable disease, whose treatment caused him to swell up like a balloon on occasion, and Johnson wanted to hide the fact that he was having gallbladder surgery until it was leaked to the press, and many more.) What is also amazing is how many Presidents died because their doctors didn't know what they were doing.

Then you get to the "good stuff". This is an amazing two story hall just jam packed with all sorts of gruesome stuff. There is a whole wall of skulls, all labeled and cataloged as to their origin and mode of death. Then there is a wall of very realistic wax models of various disease-afflicted body parts, including faces eaten away by syphilis, legs ballooned up from elephantitus, genitals swollen by various diseases, and diseases of the skin.

Then there is the "Soap Lady", a mysterious corpse who was so fat in life that she turned into a natural form of hard soap because the circumstances were just right. The story of how she was acquired is almost as interesting and mysterious. There are various models of body structure, some made from actual bodies. There is a wall that has the study of the criminal mind, by slicing up the brains of the condemned and studying them for differences.

Downstairs we find the most disturbing area which includes the "Pickled Punks", actual preserved bodies of malformed embryos. Many are examples of development gone awry and mercifully non-viable. Without going into detail, I have to say that there is about every disturbing variant imaginable, including ones with a worm-like lower body, or one with a single, central eye and a flexible proboscis, or one with everything except the place where a brain should be. Upstairs there is a display about conjoined twins, which discusses some of the variants that were able to survive. Those displayed downstairs, for the most part, were either born dead or did not live long afterwards.

There is a full sized plaster model of Chang and Eng, the famous Siamese twins who retired from show-biz to a farm, married sisters and raised an impressive number of children. One night, one of them awoke to a strange feeling and looking over realized his brother was dead. Hours later, both were dead, though the second one seems to have died only from fright. The saddest part of the story is that when they were autopsied, it turns out that they could have been separated. The part that was connected was only flesh, cartilage, and a thin strip of liver. Their entire conjoined liver is preserved in a pan below the plaster cast of the famous pair.

There are also displays of eye diseases and injuries, TB and syphilis ravaged bones and spines, and a full skeleton of a man afflicted with a disease that slowly turned his connective tissue into bone. There is a skeleton of a malformed 7' + giant next to a 3' tall skeleton of a prostitute who died while giving birth to a child. And there is also an impressive display and catalog of things that people have swallowed, with each of them stored in little drawers that you can slide out and examine.

And then there is the Windbag... Now here is a fellow who was really "full of it". The Windbag was found dead on a toilet, just like Elvis, the King. Only the Windbag didn't die of drugs, he died of constipation. Ever since he was a child, his lower abdomen was huge and swollen, but he was otherwise normal. His mother claims that he would go for more than a month without having to take a crap. When he reached his twenties, he joined a sideshow for a while, where he got the "Windbag" name. Well, after he was autopsied, they found that he had an over-developed lower intestine. In some places, it was as big as 30 inches around. When the poor fellow died, it turned out that he was carrying around more than 40 pounds of crap. Somebody removed and preserved his lower intestine, and now it is on display here, right next to the stairs... What a way to be remembered.

Lest you think this place is just a freakshow, one step above a carnival tent, keep in mind that it's true use is as a resource for physicians. It is immeasurably useful to them to see the actual effects of diseases, past and present, to study the bodies of those who have been malformed in hopes of preventing it in the future, and to have all the knowledge of the past, correct or not, available for comparison. The people who run this museum are not ghouls... if anyone is a ghoul, it is us, the patrons who are not doctors.

With that in mind, feel free to visit their website at http://www.collphyphil.org/muttpg1.shtml, and make it a destination should you ever get to Philadelphia. Don't plan on eating right afterwards... it may take some time for the queasy feeling to subside."